Bengaluru: The High Court of Karnataka has ordered the state government to pay Rs 5 lakh as compensation to a Bengaluru man who was arrested only because his father’s name was identical to the name on the warrant.
Police arrested the man presuming him to be the former director of a company in a liquidation proceeding. But they later realised that they had got the wrong man. The High Court has taken a serious view of this case and ordered the state government to pay a compensation of Rs 5 lakh to the wrongfully arrested person.
The High Court observed that an innocent person should be compensated as he was arrested without properly establishing his identity. Arresting is not right merely because the name of the father of the person named in the warrant is similar to the name of the petitioner's father. During the hearing, Justice Suraj Govindaraj expressed displeasure that the police acted negligently in this case.
The court ordered the state government to pay a compensation of Rs 5 lakh to the victim - N Ningaraju, (56), a resident of Kalidasa Layout, Bengaluru. The court said that the government is at liberty to recover the fine from the police officers who arrested the victim without verifying his identity.
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'The arrestee has clearly stated that he is not the person named in the warrant. However, the arresting officer had not considered the man's words and proceeded with the arrest. The arresting officer has not verified the same instead the victim has been arrested and produced before the court, thereby causing harm and injury not only to the liberty of the arrestee but also to the reputation of the arrestee.
This is is in violation of the fundamental rights guaranteed under Article 21 of the constitution, the court said, adding that "the State Government is liable to compensate a person arrested under false pretenses. Thus, the government should pay Rs 5 lakh to the arrested person."
The court asked the government to dole out the compensation within eight weeks and recover the same from the police officers who arrested the person. The court also directed the Director General and Inspector of Police (DG & IGP) to issue suitable guidelines or a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) on the steps to be taken, including verifying the person’s identity, by the arresting officer before arresting a person. In case the guidelines/SOP already exist, proper training needs to be given to police officers, the court noted.
